


The Tunnel's End Mouse

by DWEmma



Category: Subway Mouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 08:50:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DWEmma/pseuds/DWEmma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blueberry was a Tunnel's End mouse. But maybe the subway tunnels her parents escaped were safer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tunnel's End Mouse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katherine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/gifts).



Blueberry was a Tunnel’s End mouse. She lived on the soft grasses and fresh air of the world where the trains rose out of the dark, enclosed tubes and into the light. She was raised in a nest of grass and leaves. The first litter of two mice who had come from the tunnel. She spent her days gathering berries and seeds for the younger litters in her family, (blueberries being her favorite), protecting the babies from predators such as birds of prey or cats, which were a real danger in Tunnel’s End, and listening to her parents’ stories of life inside the tunnel.

They would tell of terrible things, like stale candy for food, the constant need to avoid being hit by the train, and overcrowding, at both Sweetfall, the station her father Nib came from, and Sugardrop, the station that her other Lola called home for the first eight weeks of her life. But they would also talk about the beautiful things, such as all the wonderful treasures an artistic mouse could find along the tracks and the complete lack of predators to worry about. In fact, not a single one of her father’s siblings or cousins was lost to a cat or hawk in his youth, while Blueberry was the only surviving mouse of her parents’ first litter, before they developed a system of watching for danger in shifts. 

Blueberry couldn’t imagine living in a world without berries or soft grasses but the idea of feeling safe all the time appealed to her. Story time was Blueberry’s favorite time of day. One day, Blueberry was attacked from above by something she had never seen before. It flew out of the wheels of a train and floated right down over Blueberry’s head. It was full of colors she had never seen before. Her world was mostly blue, green and brown, with the occasional flash of a poisonous red berry. The thing scared her at first, with all its colors looking like poison. She involuntarily squeaked when it landed on her head thinking for the next few moments that she might die. But as she got it off her face and took a real look at it, she figured out what it was. It was a candy wrapper, one of the treasures from her father’s stories.

Now that she knew it wasn’t dangerous, she took a closer look at it. She sniffed it and found that there was something sugary attached to it. She licked it tentatively and found the concoction far too concentrated for her palate. This was the only food source her parents had for the first few months of their lives? That’s an eternity to not be able to taste the mellow sweet of the blueberry or the strong umami of the walnut. 

She picked up the wrapper and brought it back to the nest, though. She liked the colors. 

“Blueberry, what do you have there?” Blueberry’s mother, Lola, peered underneath her body as she tried to smuggle the wrapper into their nest. “ Is that … a candy wrapper?” Lola’s eyes got all dreamy as she tapped her tongue against the roof of her mouth in hunger. “Is there any food stuck to it?”

“Yeah, but it’s really gross. I think it must have gone bad.”

Lola leaned over the smear of caramel and licked it her eyes rolling back in ecstasy. “Candy can’t go bad, sweetie.” 

So that’s not it’s supposed to taste? Blueberry asked. “It’s not very good.” 

That’s because you’re not used to it. I’m going to save the rest for your father.”

“ But...” Blueberry protested as her mother took the wrapper and put it safely down on a pebble. ‘’

“But what?” her mother asked.

“The wrapper. I found it.”

“Just like your father with his weird treasures. Well just put it somewhere where the babies won’t nibble on it. You know how your sisters and brothers are." 

“I know,” Blueberry sighed. She used to have the most beautiful collection of birch bark until her siblings chewed it up. She wouldn't make that mistake with this treasure. 

That night, storytime felt more real to Blueberry than it ever felt before. She could feel the hot wind of the tunnels ruffling the fur on the back of her neck, hear the screeching of the wheels along the tracks, and taste the candy that subway mice eat (now that she knew its flavor. But she had trouble seeing the colors that her father described. Even having seen a candy wrapper, she still had trouble picturing a black and grey and silver world, rather than a green, blue, and brown one. 

That night she wrapped herself up in her treasure, dreaming about trains. 

That was the night that the cat came. 

It was Lola’s watch night. But the candy had made her sleepy, and the time it took her to doze off was enough time for a tomcat to sneak up on the nest. Blueberry woke up to the sounds of terrified squeaking. 

Blueberry quickly went to her battle station. She grabbed her old rusty nail and ran into the fray, counting on the cat to not look behind him. She stabbed the cat hard through his back left paw, shoving the nail all the way through to his pad. He yowled in pain and ran off. 

When Blueberry was sure that the cat was gone, she went to the nest, powering through her memories of her own litter mates being slaughtered before her own eyes 17 months earlier. 

But no one was dead. 

The cat had been poised to eat her sisters Daisy and Meadows when she had impaled him. They were crying, and Lola was in shock. This had happened to her babies on her watch. Again. 

Amid the chaos, without even knowing she was about to speak, Blueberry said, “I think we should go into the tunnels.” But no one heard her. So she said it again. “I think we should go into the tunnels.” This time everyone heard her. 

“No,” said Nib. “We left the tunnels. We are tunnel’s end mice. You don’t know how dreary and artless the world is underground.”

“Dreary, artless, and alive,” said Blueberry. “We almost lost Daisy and Meadows today. I think it’s worth it. I’m sick of having to take my turn at watch each night, terrified we might have to go into battle. You said no one kept watch in the tunnels. Why would you leave that?”

“The fresh food. The fresh air,” said Lola, no longer in shock. “I love you children far too much to give up what your father and I fought so hard to get for you.”

“Worked for? You walked for a handful of days on the hopes that an old mouse tale would turn out to be true. You got lucky. But not so lucky, considering that all my littermates were killed by a cat, just like my little sisters were almost killed tonight.”

Blueberry looked at her parents, their faces well meaning but wrongheaded, her siblings, wide eyed and scared, and sighed. She was a year and a half old, much older than her parents were when they chose to leave Sweetfall and Sugar Drop. “Well I’m headed into the tunnels,” she said. It’s just a straight line, right?” Her mother nodded. “Well you know how to start looking for me if you ever change your mind.” With that, she kissed her brothers and sisters, and her mother and father, and she headed back into the tunnels. 

The first part of the journey was exciting. Blueberry was seeing and smelling things she’d never seen or smelled before: musty odors, the smell of train exhaust, and a sort of staleness that fascinated Blueberry. 

But after the first 20 yards of walking or so, the excitement wore off, and Blueberry just had to ignore to boredom and set her paws to walking. The first train’s passing was terrifying, with Blueberry barely making it to the wall before the train squashed her flat, but soon she began to feel the far away rumble that indicated that she should move over to the side. 

She thought about her mother and father’s journey as her first day’s walk came to a close. The once walked the same tunnels, but in the other direction. There were two big differences, though. One would have made their journey easier: they had each other. The other made it harder: they didn't know if what they were walking toward actually existed. 

When she became too tired to walk any more, not knowing if it was actually night or not with the absence of the sky to tell her so, she made herself a nest of dust in the walls of the subway, far from the tracks, and fell asleep to the click click click of faraway trains. So different than Tunnel’s End noises. 

That morning she woke up hungry. She knew that if she kept walking, she would eventually hit what her parents called “a station,” a place where, to the best of her understanding, humans liked to go to throw things on the tracks. 

Eventually she reached one. She knew she was there from the rhythmic drumming of music that came from above the tracks, and the sounds of human talking above. She started sniffing around for food. She eventually found a wrapper, and started licking some goo off it. It was sickly sweet. She made a face, and licked it again. Yucky. But she kept eating. 

“If you hate it so much, you can give it to me.” Blueberry heard a male voice behind her and turned around in alarm. Behind her she saw a very handsome mouse. 

“No, I’m hungry, and I found it. I’ll manage,” she said, taking another grimacing lick. 

“Because blueberry granola bars are my favorite food, and you look like it’s about to make you sick.”

“This is meant to be blueberry? This is not blueberry. But I guess now that I’ve left Tunnel’s End, I’ll have to deal with this or perish. Excuse me, but I’m going to be on my way now.”

“You’re from Tunnel’s End? That’s just an old mouse tale,” the handsome mouse said. 

“Seriously?” said Blueberry. “You’re less than two day’s walk from Tunnel’s End and you’ve never been there? You don't even know that it’s real?”

“If it’s so real, and so wonderful, why did you leave?” he asked. 

“Cat almost ate my family. If here’s so great, why do you care?” she spat back. 

“I’m so sad for you,” he said. "Is your family here with you?”

“No. My parents are too stubborn to leave. They think that fresh air and fresh food and soft beds outweigh the danger of cats and hawks. But I don’t. So I came back in here. To your horrible food, and weird smelly air, and loud trains, and banging music…” Blueberry sighed. “Actually I miss my family, and I’m terrified the cat might have come back already. And I’ll have to spend the rest of my life wondering if they’re dead or not. I wish they had come with me.” 

“So what will you do?” the handsome mouse asked. 

“I don't know,” Blueberry answered. “I’m Blueberry, by the way. What’s your name?” 

“Granola,” he answered. “We’re both named after our favorite foods.” 

“I guess we are,” she answered. 

“So here’s the say I see things going,” said Granola. “Either you should stay here in Drum Clatter with me, or I and my brothers will follow you back to Tunnel’s End, so there will be enough grown mice to fight off cat attackers when they come, or maybe to set up protective traps around our station…”

“It’s not a station. It’s just…space.” Blueberry smiled at his ignorance. 

“We will set up traps around our…space,” Granola finished. “If you would let us come.” 

“Why would you want to do this?” Blueberry asked. “Why invite danger?” 

“Why do anything?” asked Granola. “Because it is an adventure. So which would you rather? Stay here or go back?” 

Blueberry though about her family, and how much she missed them. She thought about the soft grasses, the ripe berries, the blue sky, and the taste of morning dew. But she thought about the sounds of cat paws approaching, and the terrifying feeling of jabbing a nail through the paw of a cat. She looked at Granola’s eyes. They looked kind. She didn’t want to expose him to all that danger. But she looked around Drum Clatter. She knew she didn’t belong there. 

“I will return. But I can’t make you put yourself in danger for me. I am not your responsibility,” Blueberry said. 

“What if I want you to be? Come to my nest and rest. I will introduce you to my brothers and we will start the journey tomorrow.” Granola led her into a notch by the wall, the furthest from the sound of the drums. 

 

The next morning they all set out, Blueberry, Granola, Coffee, Cream, and Milk. The boys were exited, having thought that Tunnel’s End was just an old mouse tale, never knowing how close they were to it. When they reached the end of their journey, Blueberry’s mother and father wept at the sight of her, having thought they’d never see her again. 

“How did you like it in the tunnels?” Nib asked, as Lola wept.  
“The smells were interesting,” Blueberry replied, “but the colors were boring. They were very…”

“Unartistic?” asked Nib.

“Yes,” said Blueberry. “I far prefer Tunnel’s End.” 

She looked out and saw Granola and his brothers rolling around in grass and staring up at the sky in wonder. She never really thought about how much she took for granted about the beauty of her world. And maybe the danger wasn’t so bad, in exchange for all this beauty.


End file.
